Harper slams communion story as 'low moment in journalism'

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday the "unsubstantiated" story that he put communion bread in his pocket during the funeral of former governor general Roméo LeBlanc last week, "is a low moment in journalism."

Harper's comment came during a news conference at the Group of Eight summit in L'Aquila, Italy.

"I think somebody running a story — and I don't know where responsibility lies — somebody running an unsubstantiated story that I would stick communion bread in my pocket is really absurd," Harper said.

"First of all, as a Christian, I've never refused communion when offered to me. That is actually pretty important to me," he said.

"And I think it's a real, frankly, a low point. This is a low moment in journalism, whoever is responsible for this. It's just a terrible story, and a ridiculous story, and not based on anything, near as I can tell."

It's the first time the prime minister has commented on the story, and it comes after Archbishop André Richard, who offered the communion wafer to Harper during the ceremony, came to his defence.

Richard, head of the Moncton archdiocese, said Thursday it's considered "sacrilegious" for non-Catholics to take part in the rite, but only if it is done with disrespect.

"In the context, it's obvious that no disrespect was meant, I'm quite sure," he said in a telephone interview.

Richard said a protocol officer told him before the ceremony that anyone who wanted to take part in communion would signal his or her willingness to do so.

Video of the state funeral in Memramcook, N.B., shows Harper — an evangelical Protestant — reaching out to take the host with his right hand, but it doesn't show what he did with it.

A spokesman for the prime minister and at least one witness, Senate Speaker Noel Kinsella, has come forward to say Harper did eat the wafer immediately after he received it.

Richard said, as far as he is concerned, the matter is closed.